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Ellen Stark: Fracking waste water is causing harm

Posted:
04/07/2013 01:00:00 AM MDT

After seeing the half-page ad in the Daily Camera April 4, touting co-operative efforts around hydraulic fracking showing several men in jeans shaking hands and looking happy in Stotts Drug Store in Searcy, Ark., I did a little investigating.

Turns out that rather than the felicitous portrait they were painting, two injection wells near Little Rock have been shut down because of the increased number of earthquakes in the area. The waste water from fracking filled with toxic chemicals is injected deep into the Earth. Oil and gas companies have tried to recycle it, but cannot remove enough of the toxins to put back into the water tables.

Now their plan is to ship it! Yes, they are currently seeking permission to ship it on barges down our rivers to some unlucky state like Ohio where they will put in down wells once again.

In Arkansas there have been more than 1,000 "mostly minor" earthquakes in the last six months. The companies involved dispute that the injection wells are the cause. However since the wells closed there has been a noticeable decrease in earthquakes. There were 100 earthquakes in the seven days before the shutdown and only two since the shutdown. A six-month moratorium has been issued while the matter is being investigated. "The industry is listening to the interests of the citizens?"

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